


Pistols at Dawn

by liselle



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: BAMF!Charles, Charles is Erik's knight in shining armour, M/M, Shaw is Creepy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2014-08-27
Packaged: 2018-02-15 00:46:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2209302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liselle/pseuds/liselle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kink meme fill: Shaw runs a prison full of framed prisoners. The entire prison population is innocent (at least of the crimes they've been charged), and Charles was just charged with the murder of his stepfather, Kurt Marko. </p><p>Erik is a prison guard, oblivious to the lies surrounding the prison. He has no problem putting a prisoner in his place, and has a nasty reputation for using excessive force. </p><p>After so long behind bars, the prison has a way of shaping innocent men into hardened criminals. It's no place for Charles, the pretty, blue-eyed, sinfully red-lipped professor, who manages to attract all kinds of unwanted attention, and has Erik feeling irrationally possessive -- a feeling he's not entirely accustomed to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pistols at Dawn

"Welcome to Hellfire." Azazel shoves the young man into the corridor. The man stumbles, the too-long legs of his grey prison trousers catching at his ankles before he manages to right himself against the prison bars of the nearest cell.

Silence – before the prison erupts into a fanfare of catcalls, lewd taunts – _someone needs to fuck that tight ass!_ – a few prisoners have even pushed down their trousers and brought their cocks out, slowly stroking the hardening flesh while leering at Hellfire’s newest inhabitant.

Azazel chuckles next to Erik, “We’ve got ourselves a nice show here.”

Erik runs a clinical eye over the new inmate - pretty, with too-long brown curls hanging across his forehead and curling against the nape of a pale neck, impossibly red lips more befitting of a woman, and eyes which are scrunched tightly shut. Soft hands, Erik notes absently, never seen a day’s worth of hard labour; closed-in posture, with arms encircling the body and head tilted slightly down.

This pathetic soul wouldn’t last a day.

Erik shrugs. He isn’t particularly interested in the pastimes of the inhabitants in Hellfire – there is a hierarchy in this filthy human garbage dump, one that is implicitly sanctioned by Shaw. The survival of the fittest; where the weakest get eliminated, while the strongest survive until the day Shaw decided to rid the prison of its remaining scum. He has seen the glimmer of life snuffed out from the prisoners’ eyes, as the weight of their situation slowly dawned on them – days of torture in the hands of their fellow inmates, the desperation to escape from this hellhole, knowing that there will never be release.  
  
There is no escape – not for them. Or for him.   
  
“Cell 1401!” The man is shown into the cell at the end of the corridor – Juggernaut waits ready, eyes gleaming and licking his lips. A sneaky wink is shared between Juggernaut and Azazel; Erik isn’t even curious as to what Juggernaut is able to bribe Azazel with.  
  
The prisoner finally lifts his head and turns around. Eyes the colour of the clear morning sky stare right into Erik’s own.   
  
It is the first time in twenty long years that Erik experienced this feeling. 

***

It is two in the morning when Erik is summoned. A mishap in cell 1401, the runner tells him. Erik pulls on his uniform jacket methodically, holsters his gun and grabs his baton.  He dials for medical help, not trusting the runner, or Azazel, to have enough care to do it.

The corridor is eerily quiet when he strides in with the runner, the prisoners all pressed against the bars of their cells, eyes following Erik as he makes his way down the long corridor. The sickly sweet scent of blood permeates the air. Hardly a novel occurrence in Hellfire, particularly when there is a new intake who needs breaking in, or so Shaw calls it. With luck, the new prisoner would fail to survive the night - a blessing to die, some say, once you enter the gates of Hellfire.

What is unexpected is his summoning. Azazel, after all, has the night’s watch – an eager spectator to the night’s anticipated events – rather than Erik, with his quick temper and unpredictable mood swings. 

Azazel now stands inside cell 1401, back against the bars, baton raised warningly before him. The new prisoner sits at the far corner of the cell, shaken and trembling, head bowed and lips stuttering in some unheard prayer. His crouched posture casts a misshapen shadow on the rough concrete floor under the harsh fluorescent lights.

Blood was spattered all over the floor, over the new prisoner’s clothes, miraculously still all in place on the prisoner’s body, over his skin, which now shines with a sickly pallid sheen. Water sprays out from the broken sink next to the prisoner; the porcelain of the sink is stained with red.

The gleam of the inhibitor collar flickers through the prisoner’s messy brown curls.

A low moan draws Erik’s attention to the lower bunk. Juggernaut lies prone on the hard mattress, dark blood oozing slowly out from under his heavy body and dripping onto the floor. Erik pushes his way in past Azazel and puts a hand to Juggernaut’s wrist. Juggernaut’s pulse beats slowly, painfully so, the skin feels cool to Erik’s touch. Alive, but barely so. He takes in the scene, commits it to memory, and waves the medical officer in – McCoy, his mind briefly recalls, - a gangly young man able to support Juggernaut’s weight onto the emergency bed only with his mutant gifts.

Azazel’s eyes are still wide with disbelief when Erik turns towards him. “This one says Juggernaut was overtaken by some frenzy and crashed himself against the sink repeatedly. Stumbled around screaming for awhile before collapsing onto his own bunk.”

Erik looks back towards the new inmate. An unlikely story, but one corroborated by the evidence on scene. The brute has a high standing in the twisted prison hierarchy of Hellfire – it is ludicrous to think that he would descend into madness, especially not with the promise of a pretty new bed-mate to warm his bunk.

The new inmate catches Erik’s eye, those eyes are still as shockingly blue as they were in the morning, even under the unflattering light. Erik feels an unwelcome cold settling in the depths of the stomach – despite the trembling of the small body, the nonsensical mutterings, those eyes are devoid of fear. Confident. Sure.

The prisoner snaps his head back down, and the moment passes, but Erik knows that he has been found out. The prisoner knows that _he_ knows.

“I’ll deal with him,” Erik says calmly. Azazel opens his mouth to argue, of course he would, pretty little thing, after all, but closes his mouth, thinking the better of it. Erik is sure that he has not passed on the bribe from Juggernaut to Shaw. Shaw encourages bribery, but only when he stands to profit from it himself.

An interesting turn of events, certainly.

***

The harsh light from the overhanging light throws the prisoner’s face into focus. Head bowed, a customary position for this young man, it seemed, although Erik now knows the submissive posture is meant to conceal, rather than an actual admission of defeat. He takes the only other chair across the table from the prisoner – hard metal, hardly designed for comfort, but with Erik’s powers, the cold surface feels as welcome as the softest upholstery.

He has the prisoner’s file memorised before he walked into the room. Charles Xavier, descended from old-world money, genetics lecturer in Oxford, convicted of murder of his stepfather.

 _Telepath_.

Arson, the file had read. Erik imagines Kurt Marko drenching himself with fuel, lighting the match, and setting himself on fire. Red flames licking the thresholds of a grand mansion, heat melting the skin from a screaming man, ashes scattered across brown grass, husk of dead body.

Xavier remains still with his hands crossed over his knees. The inhibitor flickers on his neck – Xavier had been classified as beta-level, easily contained with the device.

Erik narrows his eyes. Inconceivable then, that this man now sits unscathed and unperturbed before him. The silence stretches out between them, interrupted only by the ticking of the clock hanging on the wall. The clock is a psychological torture device, one of Shaw’s favourites – put someone in a sound-proofed empty room, _tick tick tick_ – a few days, a few months, a year, and prisoners tend to devise the most imaginative ways of suicide.

Perhaps a change in scene – Erik imagines Xavier with his legs spread, tears streaming down those soft cheeks, blue eyes wide and staring, a hard, thick cock sliding in and out of that weak body. The scene in his mind is impartial and devoid of personal feeling, like a grotesque image seen in a static movie with no emotion to it.

Xavier shifts uncomfortably and cringes immediately after. He knows that Erik had caught the reflex. Erik sits back and waits. He finds it more effective to let the prisoner have their say first. People tend to reveal a lot of themselves through words, even if those words are lies. On impulse, he reaches out with his powers and turns off the recording device.

“I don’t suppose we can reach some kind of agreement,” Xavier finally says.

Erik lifts an eyebrow. “Are you confessing to the assault then?” He wonders how much of his thoughts Xavier can read. He tries to put shape to his curiosity and directs the thought towards Xavier.

“Only your stronger surface thoughts,” Xavier answers. He rubs his right temple wearily and leans forward to rest his elbows on the desk. “Intentional projections. Sometimes just emotions, if I’m tired.”

“It was self-defence.” Xavier’s tongue darts out to swipe a wet line across his scabbed lips. “Could I please have a glass of water?”

Erik walks to the door and half-opens it. He beckons one of the guards over and puts in the request. Two minutes later he backs into the room again and sets the glass down before Xavier.

“Thank you.” Xavier gulps down the liquid gratefully. “He tried to attack me.” Probably true, considering the plans Juggernaut had in mind for the night.

“And you drove him to suicide?” Erik asks. Xavier’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows his last gulp. He sets the glass back down on the table and takes a long breath.

“No, he did that himself,” Xavier finally says. “I only…planted a suggestion.” He touches a hand to the inhibitor on the neck ruefully. “My suggestions only work with touch now.”

 _Now_ , implying that touch was not required before the inhibitor.

“You tested as a beta,” Erik says.

Xavier shrugs. “I altered the memory of the attending physician. An omega-level mutant is subject to a rather high level of inconvenient restrictions.” He gives Erik a knowing look. “You would know.”

Erik is immediately on his guard. “How did you know that I am an omega-level mutant?” He had tested omega when he was twelve. After that, it had been a series of tests and separation from his mother. He refrains from gritting his teeth at the memory. “You said that you could only read surface-level thoughts.” Flashes of surgical knives and instruments, himself helpless against the surgical table, bound with leather straps, and through it all, _Shaw_.

Xavier visibly reels back in his chair. Erik tries to quell the surge of emotion and focuses on his surroundings instead. The cool surface of the table. The empty glass. _Tick tock_. Xavier, pale but calmer now that Erik is no longer dredging up old memories.

“I’m sorry, my friend, but it was obvious once I touched your mind.” The casual endearment falls easily from Xavier’s lips. “Your power sings in you. I cannot put it in words, but you will know better than anyone else how metal, how the _magnetism_ in the earth itself calls out to you.”

Erik does know. The pull of the earth, the seductive siren song that calls to him each time he draws on his power, the consuming need to pour his essence into the molecules of the metal that surrounds him.

Xavier purses his mouth apologetically. “Believe me, I did not see anything else.” The assurance is meaningless; Erik could do nothing even if Xavier had seen the past that came with the discovery of Erik’s powers.

“Why should I help you in your deception?” The words pour out of his mouth before he realises it. He has never bargained with a prisoner before. It is a principle that amuses Shaw to no end.

Xavier’s eyes crinkle at the corners. “My powers can still be useful.” He leans forward again. “I am sure you have your enemies. Best have your allies as well, don’t you think?” His confidence is almost grating.

“A murderer as an ally?” Erik laughs, but his mind is already running through the possibilities.

Xavier furrows his brows. “I was framed, but I don’t believe I can convince you of my innocence now, which, considering my circumstances, is irrelevant.” He is right in that, at least. Every single prisoner who has been marched down the corridors of Hellfire has screamed their innocence, pleaded and begged. The years will strip them of their facade and reveal their ugly selves.

Erik draws a deep breath. “There is this man,” he begins.

Xavier’s lips curve into a smile.

***

He does not know what possessed him to reveal his desires for revenge to a prisoner. Foolish, at this point, to give anyone else any kind of hold over him. It is Xavier’s voice that holds him in thrall, soothing, never pressing, manipulative and seductive in turn. Promises so sweet that they are almost forbidden. _Yes, Erik, I can help you, whatever you want, let me help you_.

He tells Xavier about Magda, his beautiful children whom he had not seen for five years. Of his mother, cold and dead in some unnamed grave, because he failed to move a coin despite testing as an omega.

“I need to be in his vicinity to read him,” Xavier muses thoughtfully. “Of course, that will be unnecessary if we find a way to disable this device.”  Erik laughs bitterly at that – far easier to devise a way to slit Shaw’s throat, than to wrangle the means of disabling the inhibitor, which requires both a pass-code known only to Shaw, and Shaw’s own voice reciting the code.

Xavier shows no pity; instinct born out of being a telepath, perhaps. Any show of sympathy would result in Erik’s animosity. There is, however, no hiding the display of quiet understanding in his eyes.

He lays a hand on Erik’s wrist.

_My suggestions only work with touch now._

The spell breaks like a piece of glass shattering into a thousand shards as Erik jerks his hand back violently. Xavier’s hand is left in mid-air, his eyes wide in hurt which barely registers in Erik’s own mind. A maelstrom of images rage in Erik’s mind – a stunning woman in white, _yes, Erik, such a good boy_ , _isn’t so hard, is it_ , himself on his knees, _submitting_.

“Erik.” Xavier’s voice is tinged with panic. The world snaps back into focus.

“Don’t…don’t you dare.” He tries desperately to steady his voice.

“I would never…Erik, I would never do that to you.” Erik does not want to know what Xavier means precisely – never influence him, or never influence him to do what he has _done_. Blinking back the sudden blurriness in his eyes, he instead transfixes his attention on the clock on the wall. _Focus_. Fifteen minutes. It has already been far too long.

“Lensherr,” he says. No one other than his family and _him_ ever calls him by his first name.

He reaches into his pockets and pulls out a notepad. He does not hesitate in tearing a piece of paper out off the notepad and wrapping it around Xavier’s left wrist. The warmth from Xavier’s skin seeps through the thin sheet – Erik tries to convince himself that Xavier’s powers only work through direct physical touch.

With a sharp _click_ , he flicks the recorder back to life. Xavier’s eyes glance down towards Erik’s hand, curled around his left wrist through the piece of paper.

“I’m ready,” Xavier mouths silently, his mouth elaborately forming the words even as he licks his lips nervously.

Xavier’s scream reverberated off the grey prison walls a split second after the sharp snap of bone breaking.

***

The break is a clean one, McCoy tells him – the boy keeps his face respectfully down, although Erik can see the slight tremors in his hands as he places the broken wrist in a cast. He does not question Erik’s actions; it isn’t his place, and the news of Juggernaut’s unfortunate circumstances have spread like fire through the prison.

Xavier is quiet; the broken wrist will be a major inconvenience, certainly, but it buys him a couple of days in the infirmary, at least, and gives Erik enough of a cover for the lost fifteen minutes. It may not be enough, Erik thinks, his guts twisting, but it will have to do.

Xavier catches Erik’s hand when McCoy flees the room, muttering something about rounds and supplies. The boy had seen enough examples, broken limbs and bleeding wounds, fractured ribs and torn flesh, to know that it is not worth risking Erik’s wrath.

“I won’t read you without your permission,” Xavier says quietly, his touch cool against Erik’s own heated skin. Impossible for him not to have sensed Erik’s reflexive withdrawal from his touch. Erik resolutely refuses to apologise, despite the hurt that seeps through his skin. _Telepaths_ , he thinks, are manipulative bastards ( _bitches_ , he adds venomously) who work only to fulfil their own agenda.

Xavier does not react – he is either a very good actor, or he is keeping to his word.

Erik eyes the video recorder at the top-right corner of the infirmary. He pulls back his hand, _this is ridiculous_ , he thinks, purposely blaring out the thought so that Xavier would catch it. Try as he might, there are moments when he is unable to see Xavier as anything more than an inconvenience – a dark secret that he needs to hide in a corner, for fear that Shaw may find it, the way he had ferreted out every single weakness Erik has.

Xavier’s ankle brushes against his. Erik grits his teeth and tries not to flinch. _Tell me about this Emma Frost – what can she do, how far is her range, do you know._ In the open, Xavier lowers his head, the picture of a chastised prisoner, “I am sorry for touching you.”

 _Illusions, mind-reading, psychic attacks._ Erik wraps his hand around Xavier’s broken wrist and presses. The scream that rattles his ear drums proves that Xavier _is_ a good actor.

_Mind manipulation?_

Erik considers this briefly. A hard question to answer – he wouldn’t know if she had used it on him, after all. _I don’t think so_.

Xavier is silent for a moment, obviously turning over the information in his mind. _He_ could manipulate minds, Erik remembers, bile rising in his throat – he shifts his ankle away. Xavier pretends he doesn’t notice.

Another brush of skin against skin. _You need to find out her range; be as precise as you can._ A feat for the heroes, _that_ , Erik thinks sarcastically. How does Xavier expect him to achieve that? Grab a ruler, ask the lady, dearest, give me a mental kiss from across the room, now won’t you?

 _You’ve proven rather enterprising so far_.

A sharp pain pierces through his mind, the sensation not unlike having an ice-pick drilled through his cranium from ear to ear. Xavier winces from the backlash.

 _Speak of the devil_.

“Sugar,” Emma Frost waltzes into the room, furs and silks and perfume which are entirely at odds with this hellhole. “Sebastian would like to see you.” She does not spare Xavier, curled up on the bed in a foetal position, a second glance.

Erik moves his ankle away.

Unable to see Xavier’s expression, he does not know if Xavier had caught the cold feeling of dread in the pit his stomach.

**Author's Note:**

> There is a second part to the prompt - [Slow-build. Powers or no-powers (collared?) it's up to author. Also, some Charles/Logan and/or Charles/(Sabretooth)Victor Creed would be lovely.]
> 
> I do intend to fill the prompt in its entirety, although I've diverged quite a bit at this point.


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